


The A to Z of Friends

by reafterthought



Category: Gundam SEED
Genre: Drabbles, Gen, Pre-Canon, lj challenge: alphabet prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:33:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29173446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reafterthought/pseuds/reafterthought
Summary: [pre-GS] A little peek into that time on the moon when they were free from war and the best of friends.
Relationships: Kira Yamato & Athrun Zala
Kudos: 2





	1. Kite

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the alphabet_prompt challenge in livejournal, using Table 2A – simple mathematics and the claim Kira & Athrun (friendship).

'I wish there were birds on the moon,' Kira said wistfully, looking at the empty sky.

'Why?' asked Athrun behind him, carrying the kite.

The brunet quickly ran back to help. 'So the sky wouldn't be so empty.' He waved a hand, the other grasping a corner of their bulky parcel. 'I mean, it's all right at night, with the stars changing and all, but we don't see anything but distant planets and settlements in the day.'

Athrun didn't see what was so bad about that; the moon settlement was always a flurry of activity with old faces departing and new arriving by the day, so it was nice to see something calm and constant amidst that.

Kira however appeared to disagree. In fact, it was his idea to bring the kite out, made two years ago and then forgotten under sketches of simple computer programmes. The one at the top was his latest project, building on his previous success in a space-fighting RPG to create something that could be used to train pilots…or fashioning them from scratch.

Still, when Athrun unravelled the kite and let it blow in the wind, he thought he could sort of see the sky his friend longed for.


	2. Union

'I don't want there to ever be another war,' Athrun said after their history class.

Kira blinked at him. 'Because you don't want people to die?' he asked.

'The world's a lot bigger than that, Kira,' the other said, not quite looking at him as he spoke. 'People die in war, but our entire way of life changes. The entire universe changes.' _The sky won't be the same anymore._ But he didn't say that last bit out loud.

'The entire universe is a big place,' Kira pointed out.

'You're saying you don't care what happens beyond us?' Athrun asked, glancing sidelong at his friend.

Kira shook his head. 'What can you do to change the world?' he asked rhetorically.

'This is the same Kira who jumps headlong into every backyard fight?' the other wryly returned.

Kira punched the bluenet lightly on the shoulder.

'But seriously –'

'I know,' the brunet said. 'I don't want a war either.'

They fell quiet, staring at the sky.

'I think, one day, I'll go to Orb or Heliopolis.' Kira squinted, as though he could see the neutral landmarks from his position on the moon colony.

'I think I'll come with you,' Athrun agreed.


	3. Function

'Is it true birds die when their wings break?'

Athrun, who'd been tinkering with a few screws on his latest gadget, blinked at his friend in surprise. 'You did better in biology than I did; you should know that the function of their wings has no role in –'

'Not die in the physical sense.' Kira cut him off, exasperated. 'I know they've got nothing anatomically to do with it.'

'Then what do you mean?'

Kira paused his video. 'I mean,' he began again, 'that even when their wings are healed they're not he same as they were before. They don't fly as high or as far, or chirp as loud – or seem happy at all…'

'Birds don't feel happy,' Athrun pointed out.

Kira leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. 'They can to.'

'Can't.'

'Can.'

'Can't.'

'Boys!' a voice interrupted, and the stern form of their teacher appeared beside their chairs. 'Do keep your arguments quiet enough so other people aren't distracted.'

The pair looked around, a little embarrassed from the attention they'd drawn to themselves.

'But – ' Kira began, pouting slightly. 'Birds _can_ feel happy.'

'Chemically,' the teacher said with a slight shake of his head, 'but not in the sense that humans perceive it.'

The two boys looked at each other. 'So we were both right?' Athrun wondered aloud as Kira restarted the video.

'But it's not chemical!' Kira exclaimed after a few more seconds of video. 'That should have nothing to do with it once their wings are healed.'

'Birds, and other animals, aren't like humans in that sense.' The teacher looked at Kira's screen. 'They cannot hope.'

'But what does hope have to do with it?'

Athrun was confused as well.

'Everything.' The teacher sighed, before turning away. 'And yet nothing.'

And then he left for another pair of raucous kids, leaving both Kira and Athrun even more confused.


	4. Mathematics

'I'm bored,' Kira grumbled as he threw down his pencil.

'Then keep working ahead,' Athrun said distractedly, scratching out his neat triangle and drawing a new one. 'Uhh, cosine is –'

' – length of adjacent over length of hypotenuse. And I finished the book yesterday.'

Athrun looked up in surprise. 'When did you get _that_ far?'

Kira thought for a moment, then shrugged. 'Little bits add up?' he offered, flickering through the sheets of messy hand-writing. 'How come you're not done yet?'

'Because I'm not a genius like you,' Athrun replied, without any real malice in his tone. And he truly didn't mind; he did his best, sure, but it was somehow comforting to be behind the shadow of someone better.

Kira, on the other hand, didn't even realise his position at the top of the class.

'I'd work faster if you're not staring at me,' Athrun pointed out.

'Oh. Right.' Kira picked his pencil up, before abandoning it again. 'But what do _I_ do?'

'Go get a book from the library or something.'

Kira wasn't particularly fond of that idea, but he went. Athrun managed to complete the question he was on and turn to a new one before the brunet came back.

And then he was distracted again. 'Kira! You can't write in a library book!'

'Oh, right.' And Kira dug in his bag for his exercise book.


	5. Decimal

'C'mon Athrun!'

'But we'll get into trouble!'

' _Athrun!_ '

Kira glared; Athrun held his arms up in surrender. 'Why is it so important anyway?' he ventured to ask.

'Because!' Kira looked about ready to stamp his foot. 'The plants are gonna die without that stuff the teachers use in the greenhouse! They're all wilted and black already.'

In Athrun's opinion they were too far gone already and Kira was fighting a losing battle. The only one at that, for the rest of their class had already given up on them.

He technically had as well, but he couldn't really give up on Kira. That didn't stop him from trying to convince the brunet otherwise though.

'We can plant new ones,' he suggested, 'and this time ask for the pesticide.'

'But the plants'll _die_.'

'Kira!' Athrun shook his head, exasperated. 'You know full well it's a lost cause.'

'So you're just going to let them die?' the other demanded. 'Without even _trying_ to help? And you wonder why wars go on.' Kira winced as soon as the last sentence slipped out of his mouth; that was a bit of a low blow, and they both knew it. 'Sorry,' he muttered.

Athrun sighed. 'Fine, but you're doing my share of the toilet duties if we get caught.' Because Kira had a point; if one person didn't help another, then how would it add up? Even if they were technically talking about plants. Plants that only Kira had tried to rear…

Athrun felt a stab of guilt and vowed to help more with the next lot. He was still sure they wouldn't survive, no matter what they tried.


	6. Slope

Athrun eyed Kira’s proffered sack apprehensively. ‘You want me to get into _that?_ I’ll look ridiculous!’

It was the wrong thing to say, and Athrun realised it when Kira bent double and laughed. At him. ‘Any more ridiculous than standing up here on your own?’

‘…possibly.’

Kira shook his head, still laughing. ‘Come on, it’s not like you’ve never slid down a slope before.’

‘I must have been unconscious then,’ Athrun deadpanned. ‘And you must have kidnapped me.’

‘I did no such thing,’ the other said in self-defence, before his expression turned more serious at the rest of Athrun’s statement. ‘You’ve seriously never? Not even down a banister?’

That he had, and although he didn’t say it out loud it was written all over his face.

‘Was it fun?’ Kira’s eyes were dancing, possibly imagining how his normally serious friend would have looked.

‘Well, I guess so,’ Athrun admitted, ‘but –‘

He was cut off by the sack being shoved at his feet, causing him to almost fall. By the time he had regained his balance, Kira was comfortably in his own sack.

‘Come on!’ Kira cried, hopping to the edge of the hill.

Athrun fullowed more apprehensively. ‘Maybe I’ll just –‘

This time he was cut off by a firm push from Kira, and much to his embarrassment – and the amusement of the onlookers – he screamed all the way down.


	7. Algebra

When they said their goodbyes on the moon, they thought they’d be seeing each other again soon. They thought their friendship would last forever, or at least the few weeks, or months, or years, it would take for them to meet again.

After all, they were best friends and wars were a thing of the past.

And they were both Coordinators, anyway.

Except none of those things would up mattering… And, of course, they mattered too much.

And even though they both learned early on in life that life wasn’t linear, they hadn’t expected this.

Athrun was a Coordinator, but he the child of two Coordinators, was surrounded by other Coordinators, his father was a high ranking military officer and his own feelings towards Naturals were bittered by the taste of Bloody Valentine.

Kira was a Coordinator, but his parents were Naturals, he attended high school and then university on a neutral colony on Earth where most of the attendees were Naturals as well, and it was a mix of Naturals and Coordinators (but largely Naturals) that kept their colony safe. And war was a far way away.

Until one day it wasn’t. It was on their doorstep and he stumbles across secrets, both sides of the military, and a reunion neither Kira nor Athrun had imagined in their wildest dreams.


	8. Width

Athrun’s father taught him respect, and manners, and a certain elegance that came from high class from a very young age. And even at the lunar prep school he attended, those carried over… except, here, most children were rowdy and inelegant and found it odd he acted different to them.

And things they found odd, they stayed away from. Or teased, but they all knew who Athrun’s father was and it was a foolish future move, even for young children, to make a high ranking military officer angry. So they just ignored him.

Until one day, there’s a new class and someone makes a beeline for the usually empty seat.

Athrun stared at him.

‘Hi,’ the brunet chirped. ‘I’m Kira Yamato.’

‘Athrun Zala,’ Athrun replied, then returned to the mechanical Hero her was trying to assemble. His father had brought more complex projects from work that had attracted his attention, then found this as a more appropriate starting point when he expressed the same.

‘That looks neat.’

Oh, Kira was talking again. Athrun set down his project with a bit of disappointment, but it was evident his new (maybe temporary) desk mate wanted to continue a conversation and it would be rude to not maintain eye contact.

‘It’s a Hero assembly kit,’ Athrun replied.

‘You like mechanics?’

Well, he was still pretty new to it all, but he supposed he did.

‘I prefer computers,’ Kira was saying, not waiting for a reply – or perhaps he gave enough of a non-verbal answer for the other to be satisfied. ‘Though it would be neat if one day I could build my own computer from scratch. Especially if my parents wind up moving us back to Earth…’

‘You’re from Earth?’ Athrun asked, before he could help himself.

Well, it was manners to contribute to conversation, right? Still, asking a question was also committing to said conversation… And to multiple conversations thereafter, because his “primness” and “properness” didn’t seem to shove away Kira Yamato.


	9. Integer

Athrun had never asked if Kira was a Natural. It was rude, and besides, Kira had said he came from Earth. That was almost good enough. Most of the their lunar prep were from earth, after all. Most of the world and the colonies on the moon were Naturals.

The Coordinators had few places that were wholly for them, and fewer still were on earth.

But when he spotted his father waiting for him after school one day, when last he’d been at Junius Seven, he wondered if he should have asked. Not that it really mattered. His father preferred Coordinators. Had already arranged his engagement with Lacus Clyne. Was disappointed that all Coordinator-specific schools led to the military and agreed with his mother that Athrun should be given the chance to spread his wings and find whatever career he wished. But Coordinators learnt so much faster, and that was another thing that seprated the two of them.

But Kira, despite initial impressions, was actually pretty smart and especially with computers. If it hadn’t been for that opening comment about his family, Athrun might have even thought…

But maybe that was him subconsciously looking down on Naturals, and he banished that thought.

Kira just put a grin on his face. ‘Hey, your Dad’s come to pick you up?’

Kira’s parents always came to pick him up. And Athrun could see his mother, even now, waiting patiently at the gate. Funnily, her hair was closer to his colour than Kira’s. Funny how genetics worked, sometimes. Though his mother’s hair was blue as well. Mother who split her time between here, Junius where his father was based, and Aprilius where her own parents and siblings lived.

‘I suppose he has.’ Athrun made his way over.

Kira followed. No avoiding an introduction, then. Commander Zala looked over the other. ‘You Athrun’s friend?’

‘Kira Yamato, sir,’ Kira replied in a rare show of formality. Then his eyes flickered to the box Athrun hadn’t noted himself. ‘Oh, is that the new Hero model? They look rather similar to the older versions but the mechanics…’

Athrun followed the rant, no problem. And so did his father. But their classmates sent a few bewildered expressions in their direction.

It wasn’t until someone muttered: ‘wow, Coordinators really are different,’ that Kira quietened.

‘Sorry,’ he apologised. Then glanced at the box again. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.’

‘It was… refreshing,’ his father replied carefully, and Athrun too side-eyed Kira, ‘and I’m glad Athrun has found another Coordinator to befriend. He thrives off the challenge.’

‘Athrun’s great,’ Kira enthused, grin back. ‘Sorry, where we lived before was a little… prickly, about me.’

Worse than muttered comments, huh, Athrun thought. But that was what he got for making assumptions, he supposed.

Though he was a little disappointed too, because that meant he hadn’t bridged the gap between Coordinators and Naturals at all.


	10. Probability

Kira usually had a smile on his face, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the discomfort of being the new kid on the moon.

Nor did it mean he didn’t hear the barbs other children had thrown at him at their old neighbourhood, or every neighbourhood before. His dad’s work was always moving, so they were always moving along with them. Sometimes they didn’t make it a year, but if only he could blame the children’s manner on that and that alone…

If only he could blame his parents being somewhat helicopter parents on that and that alone.

He didn’t get it, frankly. Children didn’t just accidentally become Coordinators. Their parents chose to make their child one, and now they seemed to be running from what followed. Three generations later, Coordinators were still the vast minority and struggling to establish their independence despite having a military of their own. Orb, a neutral nation, had better. They’d even lived in Orb for a while, and they had the largest open University in the world.

He thought he’d like to attend that, one day. But, for now, it was a lunar prep school because somehow his dad’s job had sent them this time, to the moon.

And though there were more Coordinators in space comparatively, there still weren’t all that many outside of the Coordinator specific colonies. And as much as he wanted there to be no difference, as much as his parents tried to teach him there was no difference, other children didn’t seem to agree whether they knew he was a Coordinator or not.

Maybe the obvious differences closed with age. Or maybe they just grew. But at least the world wasn’t in war. They didn’t need that on top of already blatant discrimination.

But then he cast his eyes around the room and found the blue haired boy standing out. Found him trying to assemble something. Too complicated for Natural student this age, surely, but apparently not for a Coordinator child.

‘Athrun Zala,’ the boy said.

Zala being the same name as one of the Commanders in ZAFT’s army. Yep, definitely Coordinator.


	11. x

Athrun and Kira quickly discovered that an escape room was a bad place to be when the power went out.

It wasn’t even that fun, truthfully. Fun for children without good problem solving skills, perhaps, but between Athrun and Kira they were going through them far too quickly to really enjoy, and that was with them stopping most steps of the way to examine the simplistic machinery operating things.

Maybe they could build one themselves? But they’d need a lot of space or materials… Or maybe he could make some adjustments to the Haros. More compact, puzzle bots. Kira was still tinkling with one at his place to see if he could install a decent interface and what complexity it could operate with.

Regardless, they’d been almost through the rooms before the power went out, and unfortunately the doors locked automatically and the traps stopped working as they should in the dark.

It was better than an elevator, probably. There was space, at least. And Kira.

‘Think they’ll open it manually?’ Kira asked.

‘Maybe. Or maybe they have a backup generator.’

‘Or maybe the power will come back on soon.’

‘Or maybe the workers are equally stuck.’

Funny how quickly their thoughts turned pessimistic in the dark.

‘Or maybe they’ve forgotten.’

They both quietened at that thought. Who knew how long the power was going to be down for, and thankfully there wasn’t an airtight seal in the rooms but they didn’t have water or toileting facilities either.

Food they could do without. It took three weeks to starve, after all.

Thankfully, it only took about twenty minutes before someone armed with a flashlight unlocked the door.


	12. Operation

They didn’t think it was so easy for Natural kids to break bones, but it didn’t take long for Athrun and Kira to become the only two in the class that hadn’t. And it wasn’t because Athrun preferred quieter pasttimes and Kira tagged along. Because Kira dragged Athrun out to the playground at least as often, and the other kids would drag them in to their own roughhousing.

As much as they stood out in the classroom, they blended in in the playground until someone got hurt and they realised, once again, that they were more robust (or just luckier) than the others.

But maybe only Athrun and Kira noted that. They caught each other, often, watching the other crying kids. Watching one cradling their arm or leg or sprouting a bandage or sling for days thereafter. They looked at their own marred clothes but unmarred skin… And maybe that was what gave the illusion of fitting in, because Kira’s clothes sprouted just as many patches as the other kids. His mother sewed them up. Athrun, though, his parents brought him new ones when they realised and that meant he always stood out, until Kira dragged him along to his mother and Kira’s mother started patching up the old ones as well.

It was least wasteful that way, Athrun tried to convince himself, even if it was less about wasting mendable clothes and more about fitting in, or having the illusion of fitting in. He knew well he’d grown up in a different environment and even a prep school had an element of hierarchy that set him apart from his classmates.

But Kira was bridging some of that, and if he could stay in places like these like Kira had, surrounded by Naturals, then he could bridge that as well.

And maybe his father had intended that, in part. He had arranged the engagement to Lacus Clyne, after all.


	13. Base

Kira couldn’t remember the last time he’d met another Coordinator.

It hadn’t had been that long. He was still young, after all. But he’d lived in various places in earth and not all of them were welcoming of Coordinators. In some, his mother had outright warned him to play down his academic abilities. And hadn’t that taken a little practice? Working out where the top three or four students sat, then consistently scoring below them. Not too low to be considered average or unintelligent, but not too high to stand out too starkly.

And it was a different kind of challenge, but not one he could take much pleasure in. He could make it more entertaining for himself. Set specific scores in mind or specific positions in the class and aim for them. But academically, it wasn’t challenging at all. He might as well have been playing a game, trying to reach its clear conditions.

But then his father changed jobs again, and this time it was the Lunar prep school which was just more challenging.

A lot of the kids had parents in space development or the military. Some were Coordinators, like him, like Athrun. And the teachers personalised lesson plans as well as giving general lectures to them all. Kira was allowed to tinker with computer code as much as he liked and it was more than just playing, more than trying to self-teach himself because he lacked resources. And he wished it could go on for longer but he’d run out of things to learn on a tiny moon as well, one day.

And school wasn’t just about learning. It was about the people, too. 


	14. C is for Constant

Kira isn’t sure when he made a friend who was in it for the long haul instead of the sporadic peers he had back on Earth. It was something about keeping them at arm’s length, he thinks. Something about knowing he was different from all of them, from moving between places who were accepting of Coordinators and ones that weren’t.

It came from having people look oddly at him when he did too well at school, to bully him and sabotage his work, to parents lashing with their tongues and children with their fists. And he might be a Coordinator but he was still a child and still human and he’s sure at least some of his faher’s transfers haven’t been because of his company but because of _him._

But now they’re on the moon and there isn’t that many more Coordinators at the Lunar Prep but there’s enough, and there’s Athrun, and even the Natural children aren’t quite so badly behind.

Of course, jealousy still festers. But it’s not aimed only at him. There are upperclassmen, underclassmen, people in the other classes… and then there’s Athrun. Athrun who focuses on different aspects of study. Who enjoys different things. But, for both software and hardware, they need some similar skills. A balance between competition, helping each other excel and leaving some parts of study in favour of others.

It’s what he saw of school when he pretended he wasn’t part of the equation. When he was accepted in the equation, as opposed to being the outlier. And now he is a part of that equation. Him and Athrun. Because it’s harder to consider two an outlier than one. Harder still to consider the others, scattered about in the school, in the world.

But then Athrun has to go home, and Kira’s father is transferred again, and that peaceful lull that is as close to perfection as a minority can get is gone again.

Eventually, they wind up in Heliopolis, but it’s not the same. There’s no Athrun there, but he pretends anyway. There are other Coordinators. Other Naturals. Thiny veiled discrimination that can be written off as a more simple jealousy. And enough of a space for him to not have to pretend too much and not stand out too much either.

But unlike with Athrun, unlike when he was young and found the first school that accepted him, he doesn’t think he can be so openly and innocently himself.


	15. Zero

Kira wasn’t on the moon long after Athrun left. Somehow, though, those remaining days were the loneliest he’d ever been.

It was like a taste of forbidden fruit. Instead of missing what he hadn’t had, he now felt the hole of the good friend who was now across space.

It was different. It was unpleasant, but there was still the echo of sweet nectar that kept him from wishing he’d never tasted it. Because he did cherish those memories, and little Torii and the bots left behind, and the half-completed plans they’d worked on together, and the marks they’d left on the school. Even the other relationships they’d built, gradually, when one super-smart Coordinator had become two and not so different, not so separated from the rest of the class. And maybe even when they did not so smart things as well, things that showed that, sometimes, Naturals and Coordinators were equally foolish.

Thankfully, things didn’t entirely revert when Athrun left. Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one feeling that absence, even though he probably felt it most keenly. Even his mother seemed a little mournful every time she set the table for three and had food left over.

Funny, she’d never cooked too much before Athrun had started coming over for dinners. But she continued doing it even after they moved back to Earth, to other neutral colonies, then back to Earth, and then, eventually, to Heliopolis.


	16. Horizontal

Kira was a short kid. Maye he’d gotten those genes from one of his parents but that was just another thing that had made other kids look at him oddly. The little kid who was too academically smart for his own good and a whiz with computers and whose dad never stayed too long in one place. Because kids didn’t worry whether that was because of work or running away, and at first Kira hadn’t realised that he was different from other kids in a more fundamental way than his height.

Or, maybe, the height was just part of the fundamentals. The difference between Naturals and Coordinators were their genes, after all. The careful selection of genes rather than leaving them to selection. Efficiency versus trial and error. Unlocking potential from the start rather than leaving a tangle of things to weave through, that may never be overcome. But Kira followed the news, growing up. Coordinators were finding their limits all too fast: the downside of fast progress.

Athrun was a tall kid. Perhaps it came from having a high ranking military officer for a father, and such training and company growing up. Or maybe that was just in the genes his parents had selected, where shortness was a weakness and eliminated early on.

But a child’s height was not necessarily a reflection of their full adult heights. When Athrun first met Kira, he was the taller of the two. Then Kira had his growth spurt and took over. Then Athrun had his, later and less overwhelming, and they wound up about the same size in the end.

And by then, they’d grown up in other ways as well.


End file.
